James Adonis is one of Australia's best-known people-management thinkers

In many workplaces, it’s not unusual for the bathroom to be more clean than the kitchen. Seriously. The latter, for some peculiar reason, is an excuse to dump, chuck and run – euphemisms ordinarily reserved for the toilet but in this case genuinely apt for the kitchen sink.

Dirty coffee mugs, unfinished cereal bowls, leftovers stuck in the drain, microwave ovens resembling a miniature explosion with the fossils of bygone lunches stubbornly clinging to the walls. These are a few of the least-favourite things that characterise staff kitchens, many of which would fail the food safety audits that restaurants are subjected to each year.

And that’s just the surface areas. It takes a brave person to even consider venturing into one of the refrigerators, some of which more accurately look like (and smell like) a laboratory exercise gone wrong.

So what does it say about your workplace when the area reserved for food preparation is treated with such indolence, such feral disregard?

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If we’re being generous, we could simply say it represents a very busy work environment. Employees are so preoccupied with pumping out work, they just don’t have time to wash the dishes and they’ve totally forgotten last week’s cheese sandwich still sitting in the fridge.

The truth is probably more sobering. A revolting kitchen represents a workforce that no longer cares. Pride in the organisation has diminished. It could reflect an arrogant culture – “that’s someone else’s job” – or a widespread level of indifference and inconsideration. If they’re unfazed about the state of their own facilities, how slothful are they with clients and other stakeholders?

One of the signs this is an issue can be seen in the, well, signs proliferating many staff kitchens. From the polite to the instructive, from the cute to the threatening, and from the forceful to the exasperated, people with a conscience are desperately trying to tell their colleagues, "For the love of god, CLEAN UP".

But since signs don’t work, what will? There are three main options.

The first is delegation. By making it someone’s responsibility, you’ll have an individual who’s accountable for it every day. The problem with it, though, is that it just breeds greater amounts of laziness among the office pigs who’ll take comfort knowing there’s someone else cleaning up their mess.

The second is rostering. A far less popular solution, it gives everyone a taste of what it’s like to deal with the monstrosity of an after-lunch tearoom. Confronted with such horrors, they might think more compassionately (or even just think) the next time they consider leaving sauce-stained Tupperware on the bench.

The third is confiscation. This is when you send those mordacious emails (you know the ones: capital letters and font styles using Microsoft Office's full suite of features) announcing everything will be chucked out by a certain time. After a while, behaviours change when people get sick of losing cutlery and food.

And, really, we’re just getting started. Those three suggestions only cover cleanliness. There are also the food thieves. Most famously, you might recall the reply-all email between two secretaries at a Sydney law firm that went viral in 2005. One of them started it accusingly about a missing ham sandwich and it escalated into a contest over who’s dating the most guys.

In some workplaces, the problem is less about theft and more about nibbles. There are certain people, believe it or not, who take a bite of a muffin or a pizza, and thoughtfully leave the rest for its rightful owner to consume. Even while writing this article, a colleague on Twitter told me about her husband who caught his co-worker stealing his milk. He busted the guy drinking it straight from the bottle.

74 comments so far

You didn't really suggest the "do-it-yourself" option. I run a firm. I also clean. Even Ghandi cleaned the latrines in the Ashram.

Commenter

Brian_

Location

Regional Qld

Date and time

July 12, 2013, 7:19AM

Problem is that the kitchen is communal. "Sharing" is not natural - not the path of least resistance. It's a problem because personal standards of cleanliness are different. Much like dress sense. Just like dress sense, some people have none. Which is why it's no surprise some people have no concept of tidiness.

If you can, provide yourself with your own amenities and avoid sharing as much as you can. People can follow your example if they wish, but most importantly ... you're covered.

Commenter

personalised

Date and time

July 12, 2013, 5:48PM

Yours is a great example of integrity and responsibility.

Sadly, these are two qualities poorly missing from many workplaces.

I think to say, as the article does, that the behaviour is about pride and arrogance is too simplistic.

Commenter

BigPhil

Date and time

July 14, 2013, 10:38AM

In our office... both the kitchen and the toilets are consistently trashed by the same ethnic group. It's a cultural thing. Cleaning is beneath them.

Commenter

cranky

Location

pants

Date and time

July 12, 2013, 8:05AM

Same in most offices. Bloody Caucasians...

Commenter

Dave

Date and time

July 12, 2013, 8:19AM

I think I know who you mean. In our office there are signs in the bathrooms that warn against standing on the toilets.

We also have an unidentified culprit who manages to urinate everywhere except into the bowl. Always a pleasure walking in to that stall.

Commenter

empathetic

Date and time

July 12, 2013, 9:28AM

OMG. You filthy racist. I can't believe you will publish a comment like that about one ethnic group and not another.

One of those ethnic groups is class (or cast) based. One of those ethnic groups is raised with servants. One of those ethnic groups does not even strive for an egalitarian society.

You ARE political correctness gone wrong.

If allowing the comment about caucasians offends JUST ONE person then it is offensive. Complaint time!

Commenter

cranky

Location

pants

Date and time

July 12, 2013, 9:29AM

This is the high price of 'multiculturism', we know longer have shared values and behaviours so it's a free-for-all.

Commenter

Cathy Little

Location

Prahran

Date and time

July 12, 2013, 9:41AM

I have to agree, its us "westerners" that are the dirty ones, just another example of the entitled attitude we all have.

Commenter

seal

Location

Sydney

Date and time

July 12, 2013, 10:07AM

We have the same problem, especially in the ladies' loos. There are *certain* people who actually stand on the loo seat and it breaks all the time. No amount of warnings from on high does anything. Management just keeps replacing the seat.

Our fridge smells on a regular basis. The most regular offender is an elderly woman (mid-70s) who should have retired years ago. She has no personal hygiene to speak of so when she walks past you, you end up enveloped in a cloying funk of decaying homeless person stink that makes your eyes water and your stomach heave.

She's been cautioned and counselled many times but refuses to do anything about it. Her food usually ends up atrophying in the fridge and releasing all manner of pungent mustard gas-like odours. The odd thing is, this woman gets paid twice what I do, lives in a house and has plenty of money, so it's beyond baffling why she can't even buy a bar of soap or detergent for a washing machine. I doubt whether the even owns one.

The rest of us are always joking about what her own house must be like: probably the type of living space that is regularly featured on that show Hoarders with piles of trash around and a narrow pathway that you use to navigate from room to room.